New York renamed top fashion capital but Asia sashays in

Reuters Staff

3 Min Read

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - New York has reclaimed the title of the world’s top fashion capital from Milan but the annual poll suggested the top five fashion cities are seeing competition from Asia and Australia.

The Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan is seen from a helicopter in New York City, April 22, 2010. REUTERS/Jim Young

New York had reigned as top fashion city for five years until Milan took the lead last year in the list compiled by the Global Language Monitor, a U.S. based non-profit group that tracks the frequency of words and phrases in the media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere.

But with the U.S. economy recovering, New York once again took the top spot followed by Hong Kong, London, Paris and Los Angeles.

Rounding out the top 10 were Milan, Sydney, Miami, Barcelona and Madrid.

“As the global fashion industry adjusted to the new economic reality, New York rebounded to the No. 1 spot it has now held for six of the last seven years,” said Bekka Payack, the Manhattan-based fashion correspondent for the Global Language Monitor.

“This year’s list of the top fashion capitals, shows the global fashion industry remaining in flux, with the relative decline of some of the previously leading players and formerly regional players emerging as significant new influences.”

She said that in perhaps a harbinger of things to come, this was the first analysis where the traditional big five fashion cities — New York, Paris, London, Milan, and Rome — did not dominate the global fashion scene.

The biggest movers in the list were Hong Kong, Madrid and Melbourne.

India continued to rise in prominence with Mumbai sashaying ahead of Delhi, while Sao Paulo continued its leadership over Rio, Buenos Aires and Mexico City in Latin America.

The group said that the top newcomers to the expanded list included Amsterdam at number 17, Cape Town and Johannesburg at 23 and 25 respectively and Vienna at No. 27.

Following are the 20 top fashion capitals of 2010 and the change from the 2009 rankings